A Jolly Time

Christmas was an international affair this year. Linnea has a Swedish friend, Mikaela Ronström, in a drawing class. This was her first semester away from Stockholm and she had no place to go for Christmas. So, like the spider to the fly, we invited her into our Swedish-Norwegian-American web.
Marianne, my sister, also came to visit from Whittier, Calif. So did Sharon, who is from Taiwan. When my cousin Alan showed up Sunday night with his Russian wife, I think we had a quorum for passing sanctions against North Korea.
The photo above shows Nils, Anders and Mikaela with Santa. As near as I can tell, Kirsti has some secret deal with this guy. Every Christmas Eve, he simply walks in the door unannounced, shaking his bells.
Personally, I find old guys who "see you when you're sleeping," and who "know when you're awake" to be creepy, especially when they just walk in like that. But the kids like him.

Jul Wars

It happens every year at this time at our house. Perhaps it happens in every house with mixed cultures. We battle over how to decorate the tree.

Kirsti is Swedish. I'm Norwegian. OK, that's not like, say, Israeli and Arab, but if you've been in Scandinavia, you'll know there is a difference (it may require a microscope to see it, but we can be small people, in many ways).

But the differences are especially important at Christmas. Scandinavians decorate their Christmas trees with their national flags. Early in our marriage, we competed to see which nation's flags would be highest on the tree. No-brainer there, I was taller. But often I would come home from work or wake up in the morning (I always sleep longer than Kirsti) to find there had been a coup atop the branches.

After several trips to the "old countries" and to IKEA, we ended up with lots and lots of Christmas tree flags from both countries. Somehow, though, the Swedish ones always seemed to be bigger.

This year, however, we've solved the problem. We have one Swedish tree, in the upstairs living room. Please note how large the flags are at the top. (To be fair, we did buy some big flags in Norway a few years back, but they tend to knock the tree over.)

And we have one Norwegian tree in the upstairs family room.

Does this end the war?

Well, it does for me, so long as the NORWEGIAN tree is the one with all the presents beneath it!

Southern Utah

Anders had a Thanksgiving weekend soccer tournament in St. George. At first, we thought this would be an inconvenience. But as the week wore on, one of those sticky, smelly inversions settled in over the Salt Lake Valley; the kind where temperatures turn to ice and authorities start issuing warnings for people not to breathe. Suddenly, St. George seemed the perfect place to be.
I wouldn't say it was sunny and warm. To people who live in St. George, it probably was terribly cold. It rained, and it was cloudy much of the time, but when we woke up about 7 a.m. Saturday morning, a nearby bank sign said the temperature was 49 degrees. To us, that seemed like the tropics.

The picture at the top is from some mesas near the town of LaVerkin. We went there after the games to do some rock hunting. The winding road took us up pretty high, with some steep drop-offs. I didn't know Kirsti could turn those different shades of pale.

But we did find some interesting rocks and some petrified wood.

We also visited the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which I always had wanted to see. This is a picture of Kirsti there. It actually started to snow when I took this photo. I guess we needed to drive a bit further south to get warm.

Soccer Generation

I remember one day, when I was a young man in the 1970s, having a P.E. unit on soccer. This was at a time when my buddies and I would hurry through our greasy, mystery-meat pizzas and tiny milk cartons each day at lunch so we could head to the playground and play "real" football. I fancied myself as Johnny Unitas.

So on this day my buddies and I stood around, as uncomfortable and awkward as if we had been asked to wear girls clothes, as the coach rolled a ball out for us to kick around. What was this? I mean, the thing actually rolled! Our biggest job was to remember not to use our hands -- a rule that seemed sort of girlie on its face.

We actually had a soccer team at Longview Elementary in Phoenix, Ariz. The coach, Mr. Wells, knew absolutely nothing about the sport, as he admitted to me recently when we met again. (He's an old man now, the principal can't touch him.) He told me his strategy was simple. Wherever the ball was, that's where he wanted his players to be. Longview's soccer team would form an 11-man mob, with the ball in the middle, mowing down anyone who dared to challenge them. The team won the district championship, and Mr. Wells said other coaches wanted to know his secret.

As you can tell by these pictures, my kids do not feel awkward in a soccer uniform. American kids today are rapidly gaining the skills to put them on a par with kids in the rest of the world. Both 7-year-old Christian and 14-year-old Anders play on teams, following in the footsteps of their older brother, Nils, who played for many years.

For Anders, especially, this is serious business. The games are bruising. Yesterday, the ref handed out several yellow cards, to both teams. Anders' team, Rebels, lost, 1-0, and it was as intense as any American football game. Here are some more pictures of the boys from yesterday.

With all due respect to Mr. Wells (a fantastic music teacher, by the way), his ingenious strategy from 30 years ago wouldn't get past these guys. Not without a bunch of Longview kids getting really hurt.

Happy 50th Birthday Dad

Dad's 50th Birthday Video
by LinneaAnne

Christian the artist

Christian's first-grade class all did paintings of trees, under the direction of a special art teacher. She later put a special laminate finish on the paintings, framed them nicely and put them on display at a gallery in downtown Salt Lake City. Christian's painting is the blue one to the left.

As he learned, it's exciting to create art that others want to see. Also, artists are often chick-magnets.

Tasty bread!!!

On a wet and cold Sunday afternoon, Linnea and I baked this wonderful bread. Linnea went to a breadmaking class and learned this great new recipe that only takes one hour from start to finish. We made a loaf of bread and a cream cheese braid (flavored with homemade raspberry jam). It was so easy and fun--maybe I will bake some every week. It's amazing all the things I learn from my daughter!

Hoop heredity

Watching my child play basketball is like having the ghost of Christmas Past show me shadows from 35 years ago.

I adored the game and everything about it. I spent every spare minute bouncing, dribbling and swooping. I spent more time at Suns games in the '70s than I did in the classroom.

Now I spend time at sons' games.

My boys aren't as crazy about the game as I was. That's OK. But if you knew me then and had fallen into a Rip Van Winkle stupor for 35 years, you could have looked at the court today and sworn that was me out there. Anders may not be spitting, but he has my image.